The hallways in my school were built too narrow for the student capacity, so students would pack in the hallways like sardines. Nowhere else to look, I would be forced to look at the backpack of the person in front of me. Then and now, despite being in a crowd, I feel more alone than before, especially since I’ve always struggled a lot with making friends and talking to strangers. Before the moment I interact with someone, the people around me are almost visually, but not physically present. Through this series, I wanted to address the feeling of loneliness despite having people physically around. In these photos, the strangers who surround the person are made cardboard – flat, inanimate, and unable to provide the connection I yearn for.

a. The series will include black-and-white pictures of empty public areas with cutouts of stock photos of people placed in the scene and blended into the background. The images are shot at eye level and in a vertical orientation each time.

b. Transitioning from being surrounded by familiar people to being surrounded by strangers feels frustratingly isolating. Despite being in a crowd, I feel more alone than before, especially since I struggle a lot with making friends and talking to strangers. Through this series, I want to address the feeling of loneliness despite having people physically around. I used black-and-white to remove the interest and color from the scene, emotionally draining the piece. The photos will be at eye level since I wanted the scene to seem like something you would typically see walking around. The people blended into the background refer to the fact that it's almost like they are not of your world due to not knowing them.

a. This series will include various backpacks from strangers. The photos are shot straight on using a telephoto lens that creates a magnified look. The colors will lean towards warm, with flash being used to create a flat, liminal look.

b. The hallways in our school were built too narrow for the student capacity, so students would pack in the hallways like sardines. Nowhere else to look, I would often look at the backpack of the person in front of me. Seeing the pins and ware and tare of their backpack gave me a glimpse into their personality as well as made me wonder about how the tears and stains came to be. Bags are things people carry through their day and as a result reflects a person’s journey and experiences through their day to day. I wanted to make people wonder about the significance of the things people carry throughout their day and how the items people acquire in their life reflect their journey through it. I used a telephoto lens in order to convey the idea of peering into someone else’s life, as if the viewer was looking through a peephole. I also wanted to make the bag and the items on the bag to be the focal point, so I used flash to eliminate difference between shadow and light to focus on the nature of the objects rather than the aesthetics of the photo.

a. The photographs in this series will include children’s books propped up to look like a tent and a small paper diorama of the characters or scenes that are included in the book. The shots will be close-ups in black and white shot at the same location. A portion of the book’s cover will be shown in order to make the book identifiable.

b. As I’ve grown up, I realize how much less I’ve read for leisure in comparison to when I was a child. Moreover, I’ve met many people who only read out of obligation, but light up when talking about the books they read as a child. In this series I wanted to evoke the nostalgia of reading books as a kid and the beginnings of an appreciation for stories that was perhaps lost as some people grew up. The photo is shot close-up to make the photo feel more personal. I decided on black and white to convey the feeling of losing something and in order to refer to the past.